Managing brainstorming sessions

Brainstorming sessions flourish today almost as much as cross-departmental meetings with the objective of improve performance or efficiency. As most of internal company meetings, brainstorm sessions are not framed in advance so people can really produce results.

This article from BCG states 5 rules one should use when preparing brainstorm sessions:

Frame the question effectively

Create conditions that foster creativity

Begin by revealing and questioning the actual status before dive into the brainstorming session

Bring new perspectives to the session to nurture ideation

After the brainstorming session, follow up

Of course, the correct diversity of competences on the team composition is also of key importance for the quality of the results.